Mass Effect 2 Catch All

Agreed on Mordin as well!! Can't believe I left him out. His insight on the whole Genophage thing really elevated the story in the ME Universe. Simply loved it!

kexx: the time frame for determining how many of your crew survive after doing the IFF (i.e. Chakwas, Chambers, etc) is based on how many missions you do.

Here is a link to a flowchart if you want to micromanage who lives and dies. I found this handy for my Everyone Dies playthrough I did recently.

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/3...

So, are we just giving up on spoiler tags here? (Because if so, I'm steering clear, at least until I finish ME3.)

TheHipGamer wrote:

So, are we just giving up on spoiler tags here? (Because if so, I'm steering clear, at least until I finish ME3.)

It's true, there's an ME2 spoiler thread around here somewhere

TheHipGamer wrote:

So, are we just giving up on spoiler tags here? (Because if so, I'm steering clear, at least until I finish ME3.)

I´m confused. You want spoilers tagged for ME2, but are playing ME3? How does that even work?

Also, shouldn´t there be a grace period here? I mean, game´s been released for almost 3yrs now. I think if by now you haven´t played it, it´s on you, not us.

Either way, I´ll be careful to add spoiler tags in the future.

It's a simple courtesy to tag story spoilers in the main game thread. People can come to games late and may still want to share their experiences and chat without having their fun compromised.

Spoilers - the only winning move is not to play.

ME2 is 2 years old. Going to be 3 soon. The sequel is out. Statute of limitations on spoilers is over.

Vector wrote:

ME2 is 2 years old. Going to be 3 soon. The sequel is out. Statute of limitations on spoilers is over.

Apologies, but I disagree -- I just finished ME2 three weeks ago. I (and others among us!) tend to play games late, but still enjoy talking about them here; the spoiler tag is there for a reason, damnit!

My concern about ME3 is that folks will decide that it's OK to spoil the plot connections between the games, like saying that

Spoiler:

Tali is really a reaper who blows up Joker's head in the intro of the third game.

Vector wrote:

ME2 is 2 years old. Going to be 3 soon. The sequel is out. Statute of limitations on spoilers is over.

Why? Using a tag, or going to the appropriate thread, isn't onerous.

It's a small price to pay to allow other people to have their fun.

TheHipGamer wrote:
Spoiler:

Tali is really a reaper who blows up Joker's head in the intro of the third game.

Well, you've clearly played ME3, so your point is moot.

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:
TheHipGamer wrote:
Spoiler:

Tali is really a reaper who blows up Joker's head in the intro of the third game.

Well, you've clearly played ME3, so your point is moot.

I've been used to being SILENCED ALL MY LIFE.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Vector wrote:

ME2 is 2 years old. Going to be 3 soon. The sequel is out. Statute of limitations on spoilers is over.

Why? Using a tag, or going to the appropriate thread, isn't onerous.

It's a small price to pay to allow other people to have their fun.

Because then we end up always having the discussion about what's a spoiler and what isn't. I have no problem with giving a game a year but after a year, or whatever, just...I don't know, grow thicker skin? A spoiler to one person isn't a spoiler to someone else. End up talking about spoilers rather than the game.

Vector wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:
Vector wrote:

ME2 is 2 years old. Going to be 3 soon. The sequel is out. Statute of limitations on spoilers is over.

Why? Using a tag, or going to the appropriate thread, isn't onerous.

It's a small price to pay to allow other people to have their fun.

Because then we end up always having the discussion about what's a spoiler and what isn't. I have no problem with giving a game a year but after a year, or whatever, just...I don't know, grow thicker skin? A spoiler to one person isn't a spoiler to someone else. End up talking about spoilers rather than the game.

If you think it might be a spoiler, put it in a spoiler tag. It's an extra click for you versus ruining a plot point for someone else. A thicker skin shouldn't be necessary. Just have some courtesy and deal with the minor inconvenience so you don't ruin someone else's fun.

Dyni wrote:
Vector wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:
Vector wrote:

ME2 is 2 years old. Going to be 3 soon. The sequel is out. Statute of limitations on spoilers is over.

Why? Using a tag, or going to the appropriate thread, isn't onerous.

It's a small price to pay to allow other people to have their fun.

Because then we end up always having the discussion about what's a spoiler and what isn't. I have no problem with giving a game a year but after a year, or whatever, just...I don't know, grow thicker skin? A spoiler to one person isn't a spoiler to someone else. End up talking about spoilers rather than the game.

If you think it might be a spoiler, put it in a spoiler tag. It's an extra click for you versus ruining a plot point for someone else. A thicker skin shouldn't be necessary. Just have some courtesy and deal with the minor inconvenience so you don't ruin someone else's fun.

Sometimes things you think aren't spoilers end up being spoilers. It's almost a 3 year old game. I don't mind spoilers as much as other people because I tend to avoid threads until I am finished a game. I actively avoid posting in threads because a lot of people have had a weird, and sometimes surprisingly hostile, opinion about what they consider a spoiler.

I'll reiterate, I have no problem with the spoiler tags and use them frequently but this is a 3 year old game. It doesn't need 3 a spoiler thread and a non-spoiler thread anymore. If people use the spoiler tag, then great, but if they don't I don't see it as a discourtesy.

I think we're finished talking about this since it's a completely pointless topic. Would rather be saying how awesome Mordin is or lamenting how I can't play ME2 anymore.

I just picked up ME2 and I have a question before I dive in.

I finished Mass Effect but no longer have the save game file. Does ME2 give me the option to set up a new Shepard with the choices I want (Wrex, Ashley/Kaidan, saving the council, etc.), or do I inherit a preset universe by starting a new Shep?

A bit, but there's also this: http://masseffectsaves.com/

Polliwog wrote:

I just picked up ME2 and I have a question before I dive in.

I finished Mass Effect but no longer have the save game file. Does ME2 give me the option to set up a new Shepard with the choices I want (Wrex, Ashley/Kaidan, saving the council, etc.), or do I inherit a preset universe by starting a new Shep?

Mass Effect: Genesis, the interactive comic, lets you make the major choices, but leaves out a lot of the little things--if you have a good memory and remember a lot of the first game, it's almost this weird dual universe where Shepard both did and didn't do everything in ME1. If you don't remember a whole lot about ME1, though, I doubt you'd notice.

Awesome, thank you both!

Picked this up on the Steam Winter Sale, and finished it up yesterday. I was very pleasantly surprised! It was fun, and it gripped me in every way that ME1 did not. I don't remember how much of ME1 I actually played, but I remember getting bored or frustrated of it fairly early on. My expectations were quite raised, and I thought it would be something... different, I guess.

Honestly, I may pick up ME1 on a sale or something and try to play through it again because I did get invested in the story and universe, and would like to see what I missed. Of course, I'd have to play through #2 again after that... sounds good to me!

Aries wrote:

Picked this up on the Steam Winter Sale, and finished it up yesterday. I was very pleasantly surprised! It was fun, and it gripped me in every way that ME1 did not. I don't remember how much of ME1 I actually played, but I remember getting bored or frustrated of it fairly early on. My expectations were quite raised, and I thought it would be something... different, I guess.

Honestly, I may pick up ME1 on a sale or something and try to play through it again because I did get invested in the story and universe, and would like to see what I missed. Of course, I'd have to play through #2 again after that... sounds good to me!

That's exactly what happened to me and what I did. ME1 didn't grab me but ME2 was a tour-de-force. So I went back and played ME1 with a better understanding of the universe and found it was ok. Then I used that save to play through ME2 and then ME3.

And if you just want to play and have fun, you can use pretty much any build you want. You have to try pretty hard to make a build that's not viable.

That's one of the strengths of the system. It's probably one of the reasons why Normal and Veteran are tuned to be as walkover easy as they are. That said, there is a significant difference between acquiring and using a power well, and acquiring powers without knowing how to use them effectively. There were multiple very long threads 3-4 years ago on the Bioware forums themselves decrying the design of both the Adept and the Vanguard for Hardcore and Insanity runs and saying that they were failures of design.

For instance, trying to use Pull Field effectively requires a knowledge of when and where to apply the power. Moreover, since the power is natively ineffective against most enemies in Hardcore and Insanity, it additionally requires knowledge of how to leverage it.

This is what I mean.

You can get away with pretty much anything on Normal and Veteran because anything you do wins. One fully evolved power = instawin on nearly every encounter. It's pretty hard to mess that up.

On the other hand, there is a more complex system underneath all that that exists. The builds exist not to help you through a minefield of bad choices, but to guide players in using the power profiles of each build effectively - matching the build to the tactic.

Are you going to post a similar guide in the ME3 thread, LarryC?

Rallick wrote:

Are you going to post a similar guide in the ME3 thread, LarryC?

Maybe. I'm doing this mostly to vent. There aren't nearly as many rage-inducing threads on ME3 because it's a more evolved battle system with more obvious interactions. I like to think that the multiplayer in ME3 helped a lot of ME3 players to familiarize themselves with the combo tactics in that game. However, there are new tactics available in build 1.05, so maybe I'll do that after I'm done here.

ME2 really does a poor job at teaching you how to play. It doesn't help that you almost need to play it once just to know the enemy types in advance so you can pick the right squad. So in a way I guess it's good they made the default difficulty quite easy.

Understanding Your Team Mates

A lot of people think that the ME2 squaddie AI is suicidal. It's actually not. It behaves according to predetermined algorithms that tell it what to do. They actually follow very simple rules.

1. When under fire, they will seek cover.
2. When engaged, they will seek to engage the enemy with their assigned weapon. The weapon dictates the behavior. A close range shotgun will make Jacob and Jack advance aggressively. Equipping Jack with the pistol and Jacob with his rifle tells them to stay put and lay down covering fire. So long as they have a target within their preferred weapon range, they will stay in cover and shoot.
3. Assigning targets to squaddies makes them shoot better and can signal them to move closer, if the target is out of their weapon range.
4. Always assign your squaddie powers to hotkeys and trigger them manually. It's like two extra powers on their own cooldown timers.
5. So long as you cannot see a squaddie, triggering that squaddie's power manually on an enemy makes it take effect instantly and without regard for line of sight.
6. Squaddies that are not engaged and have no orders will move up to Shepard.

Understanding these simple rules forms the basis of effective squad command and team tactics. With respect and due credit to user thisisme800 from the Bioware Social Forums who made and owns this video:

As a further example, equipping Garrus with a sniper rifle and perching him high with a commanding view of the battlefield ensures that he stays put and provides covering fire for an encounter. Commanding Samara to a cover position slightly forward with her rifle allows Garrus to cover her while she engages the enemy at range, freeing Shepard to flank the enemy from a side route.

After all this new discussion in the ME3 thread and that long post by LarryC here, I, too, am feeling the urge to replay the series.

The funny thing is, I'll have to replay as Femshep, because my One True Shepherd is a dude. Replaying as another Broshep is impossible for me. I've done runthroughs as Femshep since then, but I can't replay my Broshep.

Thanks LarryC. Preferring tactics over twitch and being a terrible shot, I ended up blundering into Singularity Adept as my preferred playstyle. If I do this again, I'll have to give Mechanic Engineer a go.

And yes, I found that manually assigning weapons was one of the most simple ways to manage teammates without micromanaging, when for certain engagements I wanted them to be less aggressive.